I don't think there's ever been an understanding that once you walk free from prison your reputation and legacy is wiped clean.
If that were the case it would be socially acceptable to commit a crime, serve a sentence to "pay your debt", then walk right out and do the same thing again. Clearly this isn't the case.
Completing your sentence means you have a chance to start atoning for the harm you've caused and rebuilding your reputation gradually over time.
If Epstein had devoted his time and funds to, say, helping his victims recover and campaigning to discourage/prevent others from committing similar crimes, perhaps some forgiveness may be forthcoming, but I don't know of any evidence that he did anything like that.
Why were they trying so hard to hide his involvement if they thought he had paid his debt to society and everything was all good? Clearly they knew this dude was toxic but still wanted his money.
I already answered that. Because in general - society doesn’t forgive. It would have been scandal had this info be published from day one. But he never made a dollar illegally. Its not like a drug dealer sponsoring a Boys Scout club.
At this point it's pretty clear that he made most of his money through blackmail of underage sex acts arranged by him. He pretended to be some kind of hedge fund genius, but really most of the money that his targets gave him to keep the pictures out of the press just went into index funds etc. IANAL, but that doesn't seem legal to me...
Also in the 90s he almost got convicted for being part of a massive ponzi scheme. His partner ended up taking the fall though, and Epstein remained unscathed.
A) There's never been any indication he ever made "billions". He never actually said that, although he let others assume it.
B) You can't declare "blackmail payments" on tax forms. Any ongoing blackmail arrangement between wealthy people has to plausibly appear to be something else. Money management is something else. Blackmail targets gave him money to manage. His fee was probably higher than e.g. Vanguard's, and it probably changed whenever the Lolita Express needed some maintenance, but he didn't take all their money.
C) This "proof" idiom is ridiculous in this context. We'll never have any "proof" that he was murdered, but neither do we need that. [0] The fact that a medical examiner didn't have to call it "murder" just shows that he was murdered by a competent hitter.
I see. So because he was a horrible person and happened to be a billionaire, he should have rather spent his fortune buying and crashing a new Ferrari every day, got it.
This country was mostly built by Rockefellers and similar despicable humans. Honestly they didn’t fell far from what Epstein was doing but yet here it is America the strongest nation on Earth.
No, Epstein should have been in prison for what at his age would amount to a life sentence, and his fortune should have gone to victim restitution. That's what typically happens in cases of this magnitude when the justice system functions properly.
I see. And you are a US-based judge with experience trying cases for 30 years to make this determination even though he was tried and sentenced by a judge in US court already you know better. Cool. Just tell me with cricuit court you try cases, your honor?
Now imagine how much more productively that money could have been used if it stayed in the hands of the people who did all the work (i.e. Rockefeller's employees).
We need to abandon this lone genius/strong man view of history.
I would ordinarily agree, but the Epstein case is exceptional for two reasons.
First - "paying his due" in this case meant a plea deal widely considered to be very lenient. On top of that, the plea deal not only resulted in no useful testimony from Epstein against other criminals, it had an extraordinary provision granting immunity to his co-conspirators! The accusation that the deal was made in bad faith specifically so the government could protect Epstein's conspirators (many of whom were rumored to be prominent politicians, including foreign leaders of US allies) was plausible enough that the US Secretary of Labor actually resigned in July over his involvement in making the deal.
Second - while this dips into conspiratorial territory, there is widespread confusion as to where exactly Epstein's money came from and whether it had anything to do with the sex trafficking. None of the typical players who would be familiar with the deals made by a New York hedge fund had ever worked with him, and he didn't appear to have either a real staff or any real record of investments that such a fund would make. There is a very plausible theory that the money in Epstein's fund came from Epstein getting other billionaires to participate in his sexual abuse ring and then blackmailing them. Needless to say, this makes the idea of taking his money even more problematic.
Much of of this wouldn't have been known to Ito years ago when he first took the money, but it's all out in the open now, and the way the Media Lab has been handling it doesn't reflect well on them.
